[gongdzhauh]

I used to think this, but then I talked to a doctor friend and they explained that most of the dog bites they see in their hospital come from pit bulls with good owners. The dogs had never acted out in the past and were loving family dogs, until something snapped and out of seemingly nowhere the dog attacked someone.

The statistics on dog bites in many countries are also pretty clear that some breeds, like pit bulls and German shepherds are responsible for a disproportionate amount of attacks on humans.

So while the great majority of pit bulls are loving dogs without any aggression, I would never take the risk of owning one.

[genter]

I've had multiple family members and close friends with pit bulls. They are all extremely affectionate, loving dogs. I've also seen several of the aforementioned dogs turn aggressive in the blink of an eye. I think what makes them so dangerous is that people let their guard down because they think that their dog is special and not aggressive.

[lotsofpulp]

What makes them dangerous is that they have the capacity to cause massive amounts of damage with no recourse unless people have a knife or gun nearby.

We do not let people walk around society with hyenas and tigers and lions and wolves and chimpanzees. What makes a dog with "pit" or "bull" in its name any different? And maybe this applies to other dog breeds too, I am not a dog person, but the point is if an animal is capable of causing serious harm to people, then society has an interest in restricting its population where people do not want to worry about being attacked by animals.

[alyandon]

It'd probably be better to look at bite statistics normalized against the population size of a particular breed rather than "which breed causes more bites". Popularity of a particular breed can skew that statistic.

[jacquesm]

No, it wouldn't be better. Because besides a sepsis issue a Chihuahua biting me isn't going to worry me one bit whereas a Pitbull biting me would be a serious problem even if it had just flossed and brushed.

[alyandon]

I'm not arguing that a large dog bite vs a small dog bite is better or worse nor am I arguing that your opinion and risk tolerance is somehow invalid. I certainly wouldn't want to be bitten by any large breed dog.

I've personally never seen an aggressive pit bull but I've seen aggressive mixed breeds and german shepherds. I don't think it would be reasonable for me to conclude based on my observations that no pit bulls are vicious - and thus I'd rather look at actual data that has been normalized when judging the relative merit of one large dog breed vs another.

[jacquesm]

I've seen multiple instances of people being bitten by Pitbulls, also by Bull Terriers, which , while much smaller than Pitbulls are no less dangerous.

[brianjking]

.

[jacquesm]

I think your incessant spamming of this thread with nonsense has more or less disqualified you from the discussion so forgive me if I won't respond to you 'just asking questions'.